A Court for Thieves

  “What are you going to do with that?” the masked nun demanded. “Evil child! You’ll hang for this, or worse!”

  “You’ve already done worse,” Kate said, “to me and plenty of others.”

  She swung her sword, taking a slice from the nun’s arm while stepping aside from the nun’s attempt to grab her. She didn’t cut deep, not yet. Sister O’Venn, of all of them, didn’t deserve the mercy of a quick death. Kate sliced at her leg, then whirled away, ripping away the mask with a cut of the saber that revealed a blunt face beneath.

  Kate kept cutting, slicing the nun apart a piece at a time, one cut for every wrong, every stroke of the whip, every declaration that she and the others were evil, worthless things. When the sister collapsed to one knee, Kate didn’t stop, because her rage wouldn’t let her. Sister O’Venn deserved this, and a thousand times worse than this. Around the room, the flaming drapes continued to burn, the fires rising higher.

  “You should beg me,” Kate said. “Beg for a quick death. Beg!”

  “Please…” Sister O’Venn managed.

  Kate kicked her back. “No.”

  The other nuns were screaming by then, in a way they hadn’t when Kate had started the fire. They ran for the door, and Kate cut at them almost at random as they passed. She didn’t have enough time to pick through them for the ones who had hurt her, and in any case, just by what they’d done there, they’d hurt someone.

  She stalked from the chapel, slamming the door behind her. It was the easiest thing in the world to slip a bolt into place, ignoring the screams from within. They deserved this, as surely as one breath followed another. Kate wished she had time for individual revenge against each of them. She had children to free, though. She made her way out into the orphanage while the smoke poured from the room behind her.

  “Run!” she yelled to the children there. “This is your chance! Go!”

  Some of them ran. More of them didn’t. Many of them cowered back from Kate as though worried she might kill them, when she would never do anything to hurt them.

  “Run!” she bellowed, glowering at them. If she couldn’t get them to safety through kindness, maybe she could do it through fear. More ran now, running away from the sight of her stalking through the compound there.

  Kate made her way through the House of the Unclaimed’s rooms, opening them one by one to release those within. Most of them looked at her in confusion as Kate pulled them away from the cranks or the grinding wheels and pushed them toward the door. Occasionally, there were nuns there, driving their charges on with canes or straps. Kate shoved them out of her way, and now only the ones who tried to attack her died. That first rush had done a lot to sate her need for violence.

  When Kate saw that some of the boys who liked to beat the others were there, though, her hatred surged back into life. One of them ran at her, and Kate hit him with the hilt of her blade, the metal coming away bloody.

  “What’s wrong?” Kate demanded. “Isn’t it as easy when people aren’t helpless?”

  She hit him again, sending him sprawling, then kicked the legs of another from under him. The boys turned and ran. Kate let them go, because she had more important things to do. Freeing the others was what mattered now.

  At least, it was until she shoved open another door and found a masked nun beating one of the girls there. Her back was already bloody with it, but still she kept going.

  “Evil thing! How dare you question the will of the Goddess? The one who ran deserved her punishment, and you will share it until you repent!”

  Instantly, Kate found herself thinking of her sister. One look at the nun’s thoughts and Kate had no doubt that this girl was suffering because she’d dared to question Sophia’s punishment. She also had no doubt that she was no better than Sister O’Venn, enjoying the pain just as much.

  Kate smashed into her from behind, knocking her face first into the wall. Kate grabbed the lash as it fell from the nun’s hand, striking out with it and catching her across the face. Kate hit her again, ignoring her screams. If she’d had enough time, she would have beaten the woman until there was nothing left of her. Instead, her sword lashed out, and she fell headless.

  “Hold on,” Kate said, working to untie the girl. “I’ll cut you free.”

  She was a little taller than Kate, thickly built and plain, with sandy blonde hair and dark eyes. Kate thought that she vaguely remembered her from lessons. They hadn’t been friends, or enemies, or anything really. They hadn’t even known one another. Why would this girl stand up for Sophia?

  “What’s your name?” Kate asked.

  “Rosalind,” the girl managed. “And you’re Kate, aren’t you?”

  Kate nodded. “Hold on, I’m going to get you out of here.”

  “And go where?” Rosalind asked.

  Kate hadn’t worked that part out yet, but it didn’t matter. She cut the girl down and helped her to stand. “We’ll find somewhere. Come on.”

  She could have kept going in the House of the Unclaimed. She could have happily stalked it, killing every one of those who had tormented her. Instead, she propped up Rosalind, making for the door to the orphanage, leaving the House of the Unclaimed burning behind her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sophia waited for Kate even when the other girls left, melting off into the fields in ones and twos, heading off to whatever lives they might be able to find for themselves. She pushed down her worry about what might happen if anyone came looking for the slave wagon. If anyone came, she could hide, but she wasn’t going to leave the one spot where she might find Kate again.

  Sophia worried as she waited. She worried about the possibility of travelers or watchmen walking by and seeing the wagon. She worried about the smell coming from the corpses of Meister Karg and his thugs, dragged to the side of the road where Sophia and the others had managed to pull them out of sight, looting them for the coin that they had stowed, ready to pay for more girls.

  Above all, she worried about Kate.

  Would she be safe on this errand of hers? More than that, what was she doing? Sophia had seen the look in her sister’s eye when she’d left, and it had done nothing to reassure her. There was a hardness to Kate that Sophia guessed had always been there, but now it seemed to have been strengthened, turned into something more dangerous.

  Even so, Sophia waited. She wouldn’t abandon her sister.

  As she waited, she searched the wagon. There was a chest there, and Sophia broke it open, hoping to find gold that she and Kate could use. Instead, she found provisions, documents, even gaudy-looking clothes that she guessed were there in case the slaver wanted to show his charges off in something more than ragged shifts. Sophia went through them until she found a plain shirt, a dark skirt, and a jacket that was sewn with glass beads that might pass for jewels in poor light. It was an improvement on what the House of the Unclaimed had forced her into, at least.

  When Kate appeared, she did so running down the road with a speed that was almost shocking. Sophia could see the blood on her, and she had to steel herself to reach out and grab for her sister. Had to remind herself that Kate would never hurt her.

  “Kate, what happened?” Sophia demanded. “Are you hurt?”

  When Kate shook her head, Sophia could feel the satisfaction there.

  “Not me,” she said. “The people who tried to stop me. And there was a girl, Rosalind. She was hurt. I had to get her to safety.”

  “What happened, Kate?” Sophia asked. She thought about the bodies of the slaver and his men, how easily Kate had killed them all. “What did you do?”

  “What I had to. I’ve stopped the House of the Unclaimed from hurting more people.”

  Sophia’s response to that wasn’t what she might have thought it would be. She was happy that the place was gone, if it really was, and there was a sense of relief that the horrors of the place were over. At the same time, she couldn’t help worrying about the blood that flecked her sister’s tunic, and the ease with which she’d
killed people in front of her.

  “What did you do there?” Sophia repeated.

  “I burned part of it,” Kate said, with more than a hint of satisfaction, “I set the children free. I killed Sister O’Venn, and some of the others.”

  Again, Sophia could feel conflicting emotions rising up though her. She could share Kate’s satisfaction at the news that the masked nun who had tormented her was dead. She wasn’t going to whip any more indentured girls until they couldn’t stand. She wasn’t going to sell anyone else off, as cruel as the slavers she supported. At the same time, Sophia was worried that Kate had been the one to do it, chasing vengeance ahead of anything else.

  “Where did the others go?” Kate asked.

  Sophia shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think they wanted to risk staying here. What happened with the girls from the orphanage?”

  “They scattered into the city,” Kate said.

  Sophia could hear the disappointment there. She could understand it too. A part of her had hoped that the other women from the slaver’s cart would stay near her, because they were safer together than apart. Sophia didn’t want to guess what might happen to them. She hoped that they would be all right, but given the way Ashton was, there were no guarantees.

  “We have each other, though,” Sophia suggested. It was more of a hope than a reality. She hugged her sister to her, and they moved away from the road, where there was no chance of being seen. Now, Sophia wasn’t so much worried about the chance of people catching them as about the violence that Kate would bring to bear if they did.

  “So,” Kate asked when they were clear of the road, “are you ready to tell me how you ended up in a slaver’s cart? You were at the palace.”

  Sophia swallowed at the thought of it all. So much had happened in such a short space of time that it was hard to fit it into her head.

  “I was going to marry Sebastian,” she said. “But… he found out who I was. He said that his family would never allow the marriage.”

  “He sounds like a fool,” Kate said. “I should find him for you, and—”

  “No,” Sophia said hurriedly. “Don’t even think it. Don’t talk about him like that.” She was surprised to feel the anger there behind the words. “I knew what the dangers were when I started pretending.”

  “He could have accepted you anyway,” Kate said. “But he didn’t.”

  He hadn’t, and then the House of the Unclaimed had taken her off the streets. Sophia wasn’t sure which part of that hurt more.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Where… how did you learn to fight like that?”

  “I found someone in the forest,” Kate said. “She knows things that… she knows about people like us. She agreed to teach me.”

  “To be a warrior,” Sophia said. It wasn’t that she disapproved of the decision, because she knew that Kate had always been fascinated by that side of life, but even so, there were so many other things she could have done. “I thought you were going to be a blacksmith.”

  “Things went wrong,” Kate said. “Will, the blacksmith’s son… he joined one of the free companies, and when I went to see them, they beat me senseless. The House of the Unclaimed came close to grabbing me too. I couldn’t stay. Siobhan was the only one who could help me.”

  “Maybe she could help me,” Sophia joked. “Turn me into a great warrior too.”

  She expected a laugh from her sister at the sheer absurdity of it all. Instead, Kate’s expression turned serious, and Sophia could feel an edge of hardness under the surface of her thoughts.

  “You wouldn’t like her training methods,” Kate said. “And it’s not just fighting. She gives people what they want.”

  Kate managed to make that sound more like a curse than a benefit.

  “What is it you want?” Sophia asked her. “What are you planning to do now? What are you going to do with all this strength you have?”

  She half hoped that her sister would be ready to walk away with her, finding somewhere safe away from Ashton.

  “Will’s company humiliated me,” Kate said without hesitation. “I’m going to go back and teach them better.”

  Sophia probably should have guessed that was the kind of thing her sister would want to do. Even so, she couldn’t help a note of disappointment.

  “Revenge?” Sophia asked.

  “Yes,” Kate admitted. “I’m going to make them pay.”

  Sophia shook her head, reaching out to put a hand on her sister’s shoulder.

  “You don’t have to,” she pointed out. “You could just walk away. You know that you’re stronger than them. You could go and do some good with the strength that you have. You could be happy.”

  “I’ll be happy when I see them sprawled in the dust after they’ve tried to fight me again,” Kate shot back.

  “Why?” Sophia asked. “What’s so great about revenge? Did it feel so good when you were burning an orphanage? When you were killing people?”

  “Yes,” Kate said, and there was a hardness to her now that frightened Sophia a little. “Yes, it did.”

  How was it that they could be sisters and still be so different? It made no sense to Sophia, this chasing after vengeance, no matter what it cost. Her first instinct on hearing that the ones who had hurt her were dead was satisfaction, but she’d also been worried for her sister. She still was.

  “Vengeance isn’t everything,” Sophia said. “You can’t build a life on it. You have to have more.”

  “What matters more?” Kate countered. “If I can’t have revenge, what else can I have?”

  There was love, and happiness. There was the prospect of a safe life, where she didn’t have to fight every moment just to survive. Sophia wanted to offer it all to her sister, but she knew Kate too well for that. Kate was set on her course, and there would be no deflecting her from it.

  “What about you?” Kate asked. “What do you want?”

  “I want…” Sophia had been going to say something about a home or a life, but the truth was that there was only one thing she truly wanted. “I want to go to Sebastian. I want him to know that I wasn’t just tricking him so that I could marry a prince. I want him to know that I really loved him.”

  “And then he takes you back?” Kate asked. “Just like that?”

  Sophia shook her head. Kate was missing the point there. Maybe it was one that she couldn’t understand, as focused as she was on her revenge.

  “It’s not about persuading him to take me back,” Sophia said. “I just want him to know the truth. I want him to understand that it wasn’t a lie when I told him I loved him. Once he knows that, it doesn’t matter about being a part of the court anymore. I’ve seen what that means. I can just leave and start a new life. We could.”

  “It sounds as though you’re as caught up with love as I am with revenge,” Kate said.

  Sophia smiled at that. “Is it such a bad thing to be caught up with?”

  It was better than revenge, wasn’t it?

  “What’s the point of telling him that you love him?” Kate demanded. “What does it do?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Sophia admitted, “but I have to try.”

  “It’s bad enough when it puts you in other people’s hands,” Kate said. “You give all you are to someone, and then when it goes wrong, you’re left vulnerable. At least with my way, there’s no one left to hurt us afterward.”

  Sophia hated hearing her sister talk like that. She pulled her closer.

  “We could just leave,” she said. “All the others from the wagon have gone off to find new lives. Why couldn’t we? We could go past the Ridings, through the Shires, maybe go as far as one of the smaller towns. We could do it together.”

  “It sounds like a lovely idea,” Kate said. “And we’ll do it when this is done.”

  “But?” Sophia prompted.

  She heard her sister sigh.

  “But we both have things that we want to do first,” Kate said. “That we need to do. We can do t
hem, and then meet up.”

  “Once you’ve had your revenge,” Sophia said.

  She watched as Kate shrugged.

  “Not just that. I have to finish my training. I have to repay the blacksmith who took me in. And his son…”

  “What about his son?” Sophia asked. Kate’s blush gave her the answer. Kate never blushed.

  Her sister plowed on at a speed that said it was meant to be a distraction. “After that… maybe I’m strong enough that I don’t need to go and hide in the woods anymore. Maybe I can actually build a life.”

  Sophia could understand that now. She didn’t feel the same need that she’d had to make it into the castle, regardless of what happened to her. She’d thought that a place at court was the best way to survive, but now she could see that it had as many dangers as anywhere else. She just wanted to be loved, and to be safe. Those weren’t things that were too much to ask.

  Were they?

  “It feels as though we did this once before,” Sophia said. “It didn’t work out so well then.”

  “We want different things now,” Kate pointed out. “And things have changed, for both of us.”

  “I’ll still be there for you if you need me,” Sophia said.

  “And I’ll be there for you,” Kate replied. “I was today, wasn’t I?”

  Sophia nodded. Kate had been there for her, although it had taken a night of screaming for help to bring her. And when she’d come, the death that had followed in her wake had left Sophia feeling guilty for being the one to ask for her help. It was one reason they couldn’t walk the same path now, any more than they could before.

  “Just promise me that you’ll be safe,” Sophia said as she stepped back from Kate.

  Kate drew her sword, slicing it through the air with the speed of a striking snake.

  “I’ll be safe,” she said. “No one can hurt me now.”

  Sophia hoped that was true. She knew there were far more ways to hurt someone than simply beating them in battle. She hoped that Kate didn’t end up learning that the hard way, because she’d felt that pain.